Taller buildings around Mumbai Metro likely

The much-debated and controversial plan to allow taller buildings around the city’s transit passages is back.

The DP has given an in-principle approval to transit-oriented development (TOD) with higher FSI around mass transit corridors such as Metro, monorail .

TOD is feared to lead to congestion in already crowded areas in the city. The plan was proposed in the earlier DP drafted by the civic body, but was later rejected by chief minister Devendra Fadnavis after it faced criticism from urban planners and citizens. Following this, BMC drafted the revised DP, but rejected the idea of TOD on the basis of being flawed in principle and overburdening the infrastructure of the city.

“The state will, with the help of the civic body, identify which of the areas near metro corridors, monorail, coastal road can be granted higher FSI under transit-oriented development. A separate development provision will be made for these areas. All these alignments will also be mapped in the DP,” said Nitin Kareer, principal secretary for urban development department.

The scrutiny committee has suggested that instead of an influence area around all Metro corridors, interchanges where two corridors intersect or have common stations should be considered for TOD.

This plan falls in line with the state government’s approval of higher FSI derived from TOD within 500m of two Metro corridors -- Metro 2 and Metro 4 -- in order to generate revenue for the project. The Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority has proposed TOD for all Metro corridors as part of its funding plan for the project.

A senior BMC official, who did not want to be named said, “In such metro interchanges the FSI can be high, even more than 5, because the idea is to promote walk to work culture. We are not for granting TOD for road projects.”